Sudoku Chess Puzzles Spark Children’s Math Interest

Nov. 7, 2008 - PRLog -- Sudoku Chess Puzzles Spark Children’s Math Interest

Frank Ho, Amanda Yang

We have observed that one of the main reasons that children hate math is they have not mastered the foundation of math, surprisingly the root of problems can be traced to the basics they learned in the elementary grades such as addition, subtraction, multiplication or division. When elementary students are asked why do we have math? Lots of these children can relate math to our daily life such as shopping, cooking, measuring, driving, time, shapes etc. and most of the time they think math is important because it has something to do with counting and numbers.

It is very good these youngsters realize that math has relations to our daily life but does the traditional way of doing of math worksheets such as 2 + 3 reflect the environment today our youth lives? It certainly does not. Math is not just about counting numbers. Apart from teaching the basics of addition, subtraction, multiplication or division, math is supposed to teach our next generation on how to solve problems and be creative. Part of the problems why some children hate math worksheets is simply because these traditional worksheets do not represent the world they are living now.

Many "things" or "toys" our generation play already start to reflect what the society would be like in the future, things such as internet searching and browsing, image viewing, cell phones, roaming, instant messages, downloading and uploading information, compressed files, file formats etc. all of these will simply become part of their life and basic living skills. How do math worksheets reflect the way children are living now or will be in the future? Most school math textbooks still use the same style of worksheets to teach children basic math that is basically number crunches in straight top to down or left to right fashion. There is very little convergence of numbers, images, patterns, comparisons, searching, matching, sorting, classifying between one numbers operated with another number. This "old" way of manipulating numbers does not represent what our children are doing in today's society. This may have explained why most young children still only think math as counting numbers, but not related to the way on how they process a variety of information in their daily living.

Is there such a thing that math worksheets can be created so they will be fun-oriented that children can play with numbers and be rewarded with satisfying and with great fun? How can the dreaded drill style of math worksheets be improved such that they encourage whole-brain learning? How can math basics computations such as addition, subtraction multiplication or division be incorporated with fun gamed-based approach? Is it possible that children can improve their memory and problem solving skill in a gamed-based learning

A small BC after-school learning center research team is making a big leap in creating innovative math and chess integrated worksheets (Frankho Puzzle). Frank Ho, founder of Ho Math and Chess, is pleased announce the production of newly invented and very unique math worksheets which have the effect of motivating students to work on math basics.

The worksheets combine Sudoku, math and chess all in one and was invented by Mr. Frank Ho, a BC certified math teacher.  These puzzles let children explore puzzles using chess moves while solving arithmetic problems including addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Not only they are fun but also could improve children’s arithmetic, logic and visualization abilities all in one workbook and at the same time.

After inventing chess mazes, this is another world's first breakthrough in creating math and chess integrated workbook using Ho Math and Chess' innovative and patent applied technology.  
Frankho Puzzle is created use Frank’s patent-pending geometric chess symbols. Children explore the calculation path by going through clues such as common squares intersected by chess pieces in moves of rooks, knights, or bishops or using those squares which have more restrictions. These logic thinking process adds fun to the learning of basic arithmetic computation.  

What is intriguing about Frankho Puzzle is although the final answer is the same but the immediate answers may be different due to the reason that a chess move have many possibilities. Many other features include operations of intersections, multi-direction, multi-divisor, multi-subtrahend etc.   Children are instilled with math concepts of line interaction, tree structure, and logic while having fun working on math-oriented puzzles.
 
Frankho Puzzle is educational, fun and addictive.

More information can be obtained by contacting Frank Ho at 1-604-263-4321 or visit www.mathandchess.com.

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Ho Math and Chess, based in Canada, is the only international child education franchise dedicated to teaching children math through math, chess, and puzzles integrated workbooks with over 30 world locations. More info please visit www.mathandchess.com.